Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them

But are we even allowed to enjoy the fruits of our labor?

In 2014, Burger King merged with the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons in a $11.4 billion deal. Most people don't know this and probably don't think it affects their life in any way.

Well, perhaps it does.

The American-based Burger King, a company founded about 70 years ago, was bought and sold four times in its first half-century of existence, but, in 2002, several private equity firms partnered to take the company public. In 2010, a Brazilian firm with help from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway acquired a majority stake in the company.

The Brazilians restructured the new company, which eventually resulted in the merger with Tim Hortons in order to take advantage of, ironically, the benefits of this new company received by being taxed as a Canadian corporation.

They call this "tax inversion." The current parent company is replaced by a foreign parent company and the original company becomes a subsidiary of the foreign one, thus moving its tax residence to a more beneficial environment. Apple did this in Ireland, for instance.

American companies will typically gear up to do inversions around election years, particularly when the threat of a new Democratic administration appears imminent.

Barack Hussein Obama II called this cohort of the transnational merchant class "corporate deserters," noting that these companies were perfectly within their rights, but also said, "I don't care if it's legal, it's wrong."

Obama's own moral code has always been particularly fuzzy, so what's "wrong" to the former president is not always so. Furthermore, the companies were trying to shed themselves from the 35% corporate tax rate they were saddled with by the IRS. Canada's was 26%.

Plus, it is not only corporations, it is the people, as well.

At the individual level, the last several years have seen a net out-migration of Californians to other polities for the first time since before perhaps the Spanish Empire was nascent in North America. Taxation and crime and hideous utility bills have left many Golden Staters with no choice other than to abandon the former Bear Flag Republic.

Under the unwatchful eye of Governor Gavin Newsom, the prosecutorial misconduct of former Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the scads of progressive legislators hostile to the flourishing of human life, California dreaming has now become California leaving.

Can we blame Burger King for buying the renowned Canadian doughnut shop and settling in to that 26% tax rate? Still an oppressive burden, but not as draconian. In trying to give Chick-fil-a a run for its money, perhaps, Popeyes even benefited from the tax cut when the Burger King-Tim Hortons parent company bought the second-fiddle American chicken shack chain and incorporated it into their fold in 2017.

In doing business out of Ireland, Apple is only subject to 12.5% corporate tax. A decade ago, Jobs and company were able to shelter over $40 billion in revenue by keeping it in the Emerald Isle. The totals have since compounded manyfold. All that money that Uncle Sam would have taxed into uselessness or non-existence has provided for a decade of some of the most rapid and substantial tech growth in history.

Trillions more of U.S. dollars could ultimately be repatriated and used for the benefit of Americans if Uncle weren't so demanding … and ruthless.

Are, then, this new transnational merchant class to be considered roguish tax-evaders or displaced American patriots?

If one is to be fair, probably neither. For if one is to take Thomas Jefferson's preaching as American Gospel, "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

But America, contra neocon, is a place with people, rather than simply an idea. Just as California. It is real, not “creedal.”

Are we then disloyal Americans or Californians if we choose to relocate elsewhere because the place that was once our home has now become unlivable or unaffordable?

Whereas the push throughout history was to Go West!, some of our kinsmen are now returning to the lands of their ancestors—south and north and east—and many more are taking their modern-day carpetbags into territory their Yankee forefathers considered both vanquished and traitorous.

Are these newly-fashioned Texans or Tennesseans to be shamed by Obama and his ilk as what was done to those corporations seeking a modicum of relief from the cruel regime?

Also, for those in the Volunteer State, say, is the specter of one's home rising in purported value enough that one should welcome a new class of disaffected westerners and northerners with little in common other than a general understanding of the English language? Maybe an appreciation for college football (but certainly not for the same teams)?

Obama, Newsom, Harris, and their kind consider the "heritage" American a deserter if he leaves his home state and have no problem calling someone unwelcoming if he does not want his state to be Californicated upon.

As problematic as the interstate migration can be, the regime appears to want to double- or triple-down, or more, on the crisis. The apparent policy is to nonetheless invite a particular class within the Third World into the country by using easy-to-obtain "tech visas" to attract the "smartest engineers" to work in jobs that we're told "no American would do."

And what to make of the siren call to marauders, currently stationed in the global south, to sally forth across a weakened border and invade the homeland others now inhabit and appreciate as their own?

Since there is no political will to send anyone back from whence they came, particularly once they've been here for a time—"legally or illegally"—it is only a matter of time until what remains of the rotting American empire becomes completely dismembered.

Where are the loyalties, really?

The Left's coalition of the fringes—gossamer as it might well be—prefers that Americans be taxed into subordinance or non-existence. "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society," said the proto-progressive associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Do we, in fact, live in a "civilized society" any longer?

To wit. Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb, is now overrun with a Venezuelan transnational gang collecting rents from tenants in various apartment buildings throughout town. Rents that never make it into the income stream of the rightful and legal owners of the property.

In Newsom's San Francisco over the weekend, Ricky Pearsall, the 2024 first round draft pick of the 49ers, was the victim of an attempted robbery and was shot through the chest. Speculation is that the rookie season for the wide receiver is likely over before it even began.

So, should one remain loyal to his native—or even adopted—Colorado or California when the liberal sectaries do nothing but shame the choices made by everyday people to maintain a life in which little to no violence is present or is (gasp!) devoid of oppressive taxation?

Do we have to put up with the large-scale gaslighting operation—the one that says we should desire such things instead? For how much longer?

Did Jefferson himself not at least promise the pursuit of happiness? Is such a promise even possible in today's climate?

Perhaps the wisdom of another American jurist can be considered. "There is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible," said Judge Learned Hand.

"Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."

Are we so wrong to want a burger, a doughnut, or a cup of coffee for a fair price in a land we call home?